If you were following me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram back in 2014, I shared this experiment with Growing Green Onions, which was fun but also surprisingly quick and productive! Back in those days I had regular posts in a category called Things I’m Thinking About where I’d share random tips, travel photos, and sometimes just things I found on the web that I thought readers might find interesting.

Through the years I didn’t keep up with that feature, but when I came across this post with tips for growing green onions I realized how timely that would be right now when no one wants to go to the store that often! And I decided it would be fun to start sharing more Things I’m Thinking About occasionally when I find something worth sharing.

Keep reading for more details about how we grew the green onions you see in the photos; I was actually quite surprised at how quickly they grew! And there are a few green onion tips in the comments too.

How to Grow Green Onions on the Counter:

The first step in growing green onions is finding a short squatty jar where you can pack in quite a few green onions and get them to not be buried too low in the jar. I used a jar from Better than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base (affiliate link), I’m always pretty vigilant about re-using those jars.

I wanted to use some of the green onion before I tried re-growing them, so I cut off the root end so it was about 3-4 inches long.

Then just put green onions in the jar, fill the jar with water and let them grow!

I don’t know if it was completely necessary, but I replaced the water every 2-3 days.

Here’s how the green onions looked on day three; are you as surprised as I was by how much they had grown?

Of course you can start snipping off the tops any time you’d like, but I was documenting the total growth so I didn’t do that.

I guess I got distracted and didn’t take a photo on day six, but by day nine the growth was pretty impressive.

Most people would probably start using the green onions by this time. You can take a few out, snip off some of the ends with Kitchen Shears (affiliate link), and put the root back into the jar to grow again.

And look at the amazing green onion crop I had after twelve days!

You can trim off most of the long green top, put green onions back into fresh water, and completely grow them again a second time.

I found that once they had grown two green tops, the green onions didn’t produce much the third time. Maybe you will have started a second batch by then!

And I’ll never run out of green onions again!

Recipes that Make Me Love Green Onions:

I’m a HUGE fan of green onions, and you can enter “green onions” into the search bar to see all my recipe idea using them. Here are a few recipes where I’d never skip the green onions:

More things I’m thinking about this week.

This effort by ordinary people is so heartwarming and also such a wonderful example of the way people want to help each other during this difficult time. Have you noticed how so many people are getting involved in efforts like this?

I’m a huge fan of Brene Brown, and even have one of her books on my nightstand right now! So I was completely doing the fan-girl squeal when people on Twitter told me she mentioned me on her podcast with Glennon Doyle! Apparently she’s a fan of my Spicy Lime Coleslaw and makes it with one of the ingredients that sponsors the podcast, and I couldn’t be more honored to know she is enjoying one of my recipes.

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In the U.S. this type of onions are commonly called Green Onions. But yes, when you grow then in water like this it’s the green part that grows. I think you can plant the rooted ends in soil, but I’m not sure if that will make the white part grow again. I use the dark green ends a lot in cooking, so that’s why I’m such a fan of this tip.

I’m not sure if you pulled out one of those green stalks if there would be more white onion on the end, I haven’t ever tried that!

I realize this is an old post, and someone may have already pointed this out, but you can get better results by cutting all of the green part off, leaving just the bulb and the roots. That way you get to use all of the greens and they will regrow completely from the bulb, so you get double the amount.

I didn't see anyone mention it so I will. You said in the article the second growing isn't as strong as the first. That is probably because the water has no nutrients for the onions. I use a small pot with 6 to 8 onions and homemade compost to regrow organically and a family of 4 doesn't run out. A larger pot could accomadate more onions but using soil is key.